The Republican Party may lose the Latino vote over its latest stance on restricting citizenship to children born to certain immigrants, warned an influential Hispanic evangelical.

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said his group is “disappointed” with the Republican Party’s rhetoric on immigration, especially regarding the party’s consideration to amend the constitutional provision guaranteeing “birthright citizenship.”

“[It] may very well serve as the nail on the coffin to the inevitable alienation of America’s largest ethnic minority,” Rodriguez commented in a statement Tuesday. more >>

Both conservative evangelicals and liberal mainline Protestant groups are applauding a new legislation that makes the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine possession more fair.

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, passed by the U.S. House last week, reduces the infamous 100-to-1 sentencing ratio for possession of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine to 18-to-1.

The current law mandates a minimum of five years in prison for simple possession of crack cocaine. Meanwhile, an amount of powder cocaine 100 times larger than crack cocaine would result in the same incarceration period. more >>

The nation’s largest evangelical body is urging the Florida church behind “International Burn A Quran Day” to cancel its plans.

Plans to burn Islam’s holy book on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 shows “disrespect” for Muslims and would only “exacerbate tensions” in Christian-Muslim relations worldwide, stated the National Association of Evangelicals on Thursday.

“It sounds like the proposed Quran burning is rooted in revenge,” said NAE President Leith Anderson, in a statement. “Yet the Bible says that Christians should ‘make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else’ (I Thessalonians 5:15).” more >>

Evangelical churches across the nation, including several megachurches, will join in a national day of prayer for the Gulf Coast community on Sunday.

The “National Day of Prayer for the Gulf,” sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Evangelical Environmental Network, expects to inspire thousands of Christians to pray for the residents of the Gulf Coast impacted by the BP oil spill.

Originally, organizers planned to pray for the oil to stop gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. But now that the new containment cap seems to be stopping the oil leak, participants will be asked to pray for the long-term recovery process. more >>

The nation’s largest evangelical body on Thursday launched a new abortion reduction initiative in which discussion about sex is a major focus.

Sexual activity outside of marriage is occurring at a significant level among young evangelicals, said the National Association of Evangelicals. And young unmarried evangelicals are among those who are having abortions.

“There are a significant number of abortions taking place within the evangelical community but we don’t really talk about that,” said Galen Carey, director of government affairs at the NAE, to The Christian Post. “So we want to stimulate a conversation.” more >>